I've witnessed something similar. During the 2008 Olympics, I studied abroad in Beijing and was pretty fortunate to stay at the BNU campus where they hosted the training complex for the U.S. Olympians. I saw with my own eyes a 5 story training complex built from the ground up in two weeks.<p>They did it in day/night shifts. One team worked day while one team worked night. At around the 12 hour mark they would switch off. They wore no helmets or masks and worked quite rapidly. There was maybe one or two hours when the building was not being worked on.<p>In the end, the product was impressive and sturdy. The building looked slick and I know for sure our athletes liked it. I saw the swim, fencing, and basketball teams walk in and out of it.
I find it sad that this would never happen in the US. There is so much red tape to cut through, construction projects of just simple diners takes months. Getting small cites to act and do inspections takes planning since they rarely act with any sense of urgency plus the amount of inspections needed at every step of the project.
We had an in-and-out built in Redwood City in about 30 days. I thought that was a world-class amazing feat of engineering, project management, and construction. I'm somewhat in awe of the 15-story hotel project. I wonder if the process/margins/tools they used are repeatable, or whether it made sense just as a stunt.
This reminds me of the german house build on Grand Designs that went up in a few days. Prefab is definitely quicker.<p>You can apply factory optimisations to prefabricate - and store materials.<p>This reduces dependencies, and thus delays, and also increases speed. It reduces injuries, waste, environmental impact, building disturbances for neighbours. The quality is also improved.<p>Make a modern factory at every site where you want to build something, or have the modern factory send prefabricated parts?
On the seventh day, they rested.<p>On the eighth day, it falls over:
<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5304233/entire-new-13+story-building-tips-over-in-shanghai/gallery/" rel="nofollow">http://gizmodo.com/5304233/entire-new-13+story-building-tips...</a><p>Maybe that red tape is there for a reason.
Ironically, they will probably tear it down just as fast: <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/article/china-proudly-demolishing-buildings-completed-pursuit-great-housing-bubble-perpetual-engine" rel="nofollow">http://www.zerohedge.com/article/china-proudly-demolishing-b...</a>